Doomed, doomed, we're all doomed.

Anyone care to identify the above quote? There's a couple of top Googlers on here who will get on the case pronto. But why doomed? Well C&SC is just coming up to it's thirtieth birthday and the esteemed James Elliott is mentioning Stags while the forum has questions about someone who wants his 1999 Jag S to be a classic, when all real Jag fans recognised it as a grasping at straws attempt by a company about to go under trying to recapture an imagined lost youth. At least we can hope that it does better under Tata than it did with Ford. Then, worse, there is someone who asks the value of a Nissan Primera. Last chance guys - bring back the classics. Anyone out there got a pre1930 Bentley? A Bugatti? Or more likely, a decent early Mustang? Cortina even, help!

Nuno, maybe one of those imperfections is the way not every nuance intended as humour translates across boundaries. I hope James's posts about Triumph Stags were posted in a similar sense of mischief, as was the other poster's first (and last) request to value a Nissan Primera. I rather hope your posts with anonymous Datsuns photographed from every possible angle reflect a humorous side to your contributions too. As for the chap with the Jag, I suspect he is serious, in which case I have no answer but to celebrate Jaguar's classic years, and hope the new Indian regime can restore the brand to it's former glory. The doomed quote would probably not mean much in Portugal, but one of our British based members may know - I am not giving the game away here, and don't tell him Pike!

As for anniversaries, these days it is always an excuse to recycle old stuff in the name of nostalgia, but I hope, and trust C&SC will not be so cheap and unimaginative in a couple of weeks. I will be down at Patel's with a Lady Godiva in my sweaty as usual.

At Portugal we have not a magazine as CSC, but in the web the classic cars community is much more active. For the last two years I run on the biggest portuguese car web forum a topic about daily driving with my 3 yountimers.

It have 1705 anwsers and 123118 visits (today figures). Some times someone post there something like that; "I ran also a car that is almost a classic, a Citroen C5 and bla bla bla..."

As the time pass we see a lot of people showing up and desapear, like that C5 driver, people who is very upset as things are not the way they think that is the rightway, people who think that can make restorations based only in strong desire to do it, troublemakers and web hooligans in various styles, undercover traders, people convinced that their car is the great classic of all times, etc etc etc... and on the other side we finish to meet, share the passion and learn with very interesting people, first online and later on real life.

To prove that look at my face, when driving a Fiat 124 Spider (with a Dino steering wheel). This is the daily driver of another member of the forum I meet during a business trip in the deep south near the spanish border (far away from my Lisbon house)

so don't bother, as in real life time and commun sense will make the natural selection

(sorry about my english, I'm from a generation who never had english lessons at school)

reply to Duesie Yes the Mustang is a bit cruddy but barn finds don,t always come all spived up, polished and ready to go on show, someone has to get dirt and grease under their finger nails before the cars become habitable and enjoyable. The Mazda mx5 (miata) has an American made body kit fitted which is not a copy of anything, because of copyright laws it has styling features that tend to suggest a Ferrari heritage but thats all. There are no manufacturers badges only the designers emblem (Simpson Design) If the lawyers get you for copyright infringment they send the sherriff or law enforcement officers with chain-saws to chop up your moulds,This car has modified suspension and a stage 2 Jackson Supercharger kit fitted which produces 6-7lbs boost , which makes for quite an interesting car.The Thunder-Saloon Vauxhall Viva V8 photo's were taken right in centre of B'ham just across from the Bull-ring at the J F kennedy memorial by Snow- Hill train station. there is quite a story with that car so I will do a feature on it in a week or so.